The essence of economic globalization is the redistribution of capital, technology, labor, natural resources and market in a better way on a global scale. Strong countries benefit from getting more resources and markets, while weak countries may lose their original resources and markets and be marginalized. The United States, with the strongest economic strength and leading technological progress, is the biggest beneficiary, and China is now the beneficiary country second only to the United States. In the process of economic globalization, China can not only give play to its comparative advantages of cheap labor and market potential, but also make up for its disadvantages of relative lack of natural resources and great employment pressure.

First, actively integrating into the process of globalization can give play to China's comparative advantages.

(A) the advantages of a large country with a large population

For a long time, the huge population has been the biggest obstacle to China's economy. On a global scale, this disadvantage is turning into comparative advantage, which is a trend worthy of attention. On the one hand, the huge population and abundant labor resources can maintain the advantage of low wage cost for a long time. On the other hand, the population is large and the potential market demand is huge.

Since joining the WTO in 2002, China's opening to the outside world has entered a new stage, and its development in the past three years has fully demonstrated China's comparative advantage in actively integrating into economic globalization.

First, in 2002, China's import and export increased by only 7.5% year-on-year. Since 2002, China's foreign trade has suddenly accelerated. China's total import and export volume increased from 2 1.8% in 2002, 37. 1% in 2003 and 2 1.8% in 2004, from 1 to 1.8% year-on-year. It is estimated that the total foreign trade will exceed $65,438 +0. 1 trillion. In 2003, the global trade volume of import and export commodities was 15.2 trillion US dollars, including 13% in the United States, 9% in Germany, less than 6% in China, and about 7% in China in 2004. According to the growth rate in the past three years or slightly lower, in the next few years, China will surpass Germany in total trade volume and the United States in total export volume, and surpass the United States to become the world's largest trading country soon after 20 10. This forecast is based on the high dependence of China's economy on foreign trade. In 2004, China's import and export trade will account for 70% of GDP, much higher than that of the United States, Japan, Brazil, India, Russia and other big countries, and Japan's foreign trade will account for 36% of GDP in the highest year.

Second, the direct use of foreign capital grew rapidly. Since China's utilization of foreign direct investment exceeded 50 billion in 2002, China has been the largest country in the world for three consecutive years. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, during the period of 1 ~ 1 in 2004, the amount of foreign capital utilized in the whole century was $537,854.38 billion+0 billion, and it is expected to exceed $65 billion in the whole year. As the level of foreign capital utilization in China is based on low labor costs and huge comparative advantages in the potential market, no country can replace China in the short term as long as the economy keeps a sustained growth trend.

(B) the long-term comparative advantage of the labor force

It has long been recognized that China has strong international competitiveness in labor-intensive industries. What is worthy of socialism is the long-term nature of this advantage, which is manifested in two aspects:

First, China's low-cost advantage in labor-intensive industries will be maintained for a long time. The experience of advanced countries in East Asia shows that with economic growth and income increase, this industry will soon be transferred internationally due to rising wage costs. Due to the huge potential of labor supply in China, the wage costs of many industries formed at the beginning of reform and opening up have not changed much after more than 20 years. It was not until the last two years that the "shortage of migrant workers" in developed areas showed the pressure of rising wages, and it still lost its competitiveness for a long time. In addition, the promotion of these industries in China and the reform of social policies to treat migrant workers as citizens will delay the process of rising wage costs. It can be predicted that the time to maintain this competitive advantage is roughly consistent with the urbanization process.

Second, China's advantages in the cost of medium and high skilled labor began to appear.

For China, abundant labor resources are like a double-edged sword: it is conducive to the low-cost advantage of labor; However, to maintain this advantage, it is necessary to constantly transform the potential labor supply into actual supply, and reduce the wage level by increasing the labor supply at all levels to maintain competitiveness, which will make the employment pressure long-term.

EU officials analyze the advantages and disadvantages of economic globalization.

Sandra, Director of the Trade Department of the European Commission, said that economic globalization and sustainable development are two important issues facing the world economy at present. People's differences on economic globalization and its advantages and disadvantages can not be ignored. Don't hesitate when you turn around.

Sandra made the above remarks at the fifth Asia-Europe Economic Ministers' Meeting held here on the 22nd. She is the representative of the European Union at this meeting and served as the director of the Asian Relations Department of the European Commission for two years.

Sandra said that both rich and poor countries feel that the expansion of trade and investment liberalization has played a great role in the world economy and sustainable development after the Second World War, and many countries have benefited from it. The new century brings opportunities to economic globalization. Economic globalization makes economies between countries highly dependent, and international trade and cooperation become more and more important. The Asia-Europe High-level Forum will discuss cooperation, world economic development trends, opportunities and challenges, and China's investment environment, and its discussion results will benefit Asia-Europe members.

Sandra said that economic globalization can promote the improvement of production. In the last 40 years of the 20th century, the global economic growth rate reached 3.5% every year. 1in the middle of the 9th century, when there was no unilateral or multilateral trade liberalization, it was only 1% every year. She said that through the analysis of various countries, it can be seen that actively developing foreign trade and foreign investment is very beneficial to promoting economic growth and reducing poverty. China and India are successful examples. Many developing countries make use of the opening of foreign trade to make their economies develop rapidly. Manufacturing in these developing countries has accounted for 70% of exports. And 30 years ago, they only exported a lot of raw materials. Analyze the real purpose of mainstream funds and find the best profit opportunities! )

However, she believes that there are also some problems in economic globalization and the imbalance of development still exists. For developing countries, the benefits brought by trade are greatly suppressed by some protective measures, and the direct investment of multinational companies rarely enters the poorest countries. Therefore, taking auxiliary measures for poor countries will maximize the interests of all parties.

She said that to achieve economic globalization, it is necessary to strengthen the establishment of standards in trade and finance, and all countries should contribute to this goal. Because the richest countries have the strongest economic strength, but at the same time, in order to ensure the economic development of poor countries, these countries urgently need reform.

Sandra believes that in order to achieve sustainable economic development, we must strive to reduce environmental costs and improve market rules. A sustainable development project must consider all the costs. Economic globalization is of great significance, but it also increases many risks. Now, mankind should seek to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of economic globalization, achieve the best balance between them, establish rules to adapt to changing conditions, and establish reasonable domestic policies.

She said that economic development is very important for Asia and Europe. Therefore, Asia and Europe should attach importance to and maintain mutual dialogue in order to promote economic globalization and sustainable development.

The three-day Fifth Asia-Europe Economic Ministers' Meeting opened on the 22nd, and all representatives from 26 ASEM members attended the meeting.